Flame Off!: Turning Natural Gas Pollution into Gasoline

Friday, May 1, 2009 - 00:14 in Physics & Chemistry

As if burning oil and all of its derivatives wasn't bad enough for the environment, there's also the natural gas that bubbles up as the oil is pumped out. This byproduct cannot be easily harvested in many cases--some oil fields are far from pipelines that can transport it and other options are very expensive. As a result, oil companies either release it into the atmosphere--a process known as venting--or burn it in a flare. [More]

Read the whole article on Scientific American

More from Scientific American

Latest Science Newsletter

Get the latest and most popular science news articles of the week in your Inbox! It's free!

Check out our next project, Biology.Net